Dazed by the tight embrace of the unknown woman, Kurian found himself involuntarily wrapping his arms around her as well.
Whether it was intentional or not, a heaviness seemed to lift from his chest — a quiet longing eased — as he buried himself in her warmth.
"Kurian." The woman breathed his name through soft hiccups, her voice trembling in the hush.
As for the said boy, he had but one thought: 'This feels… nice.'
Time blurred before the hold finally slackened. Kurian loosened his grip in turn, and at last he saw her face.
She was a beauty — eyes wide and gentle as a doe's, their teal depths framed by dark hair that spilled like midnight silk.
He could have praised her endlessly; her presence alone was the pre-definition of what beauty meant.
"Goddess," Kurian murmured, awestruck.
The woman let out a small, surprised laugh. "Oh? My son calls me a goddess now?"
'Her voice…' Kurian noticed, 'its muffled. Or... is it?!'
As his senses sharpened, he realized something pressed against his ears, sealing them as if to keep the world's noise away. But why would anyone need to do that?
His gaze drifted downward, and he felt the stubborn resistance of his tightly clamped leg. Then he saw the ropes — coiled around his limbs, holding him fast, denying even the smallest motion.
A strange chill slid through him as he wondered whether he was a cherished child… or a captive waiting to wake.
*Knock — Knock*
A sudden bang echoed above the room, and the woman's body gave a faint, startled tremor. Without a word, she drew out another length of rope and tightened the bindings around Kurian, her movements brisk and unyielding.
A strip of cloth followed — first across his eyes, blotting out the dim light, then over his mouth, sealing his breath behind a faint, muffled hum.
"Be a good child and stay here quietly," she instructed, her voice gentle yet edged with command as Kurian's body slightly tensed.
With that, she departed, her footsteps fading into silence.
Left alone in a haze of confusion and questions, Kurian wondered, 'Should I stay put?'
He could not guess where he was or why this was happening, yet the woman — his mother, or so she claimed — had spoken insistently for him to stay put.
And Kurian, carrying the memories of a soldier, felt the instinct to obey the chain of command. Being his mother, she stood above him. Yet uncertainty gnawed at the edges of his thoughts.
'Keeping still isn't the worst choice,' he reasoned. There had been no malice in her touch, no hostility in her tone. And yet… was obedience truly the right path?
As the fog of indecision thickened, an old voice cut through like the first light of dawn — a warning from his late instructor: "Leniency will cost more than what you can cough."
A strange shudder ran down his spine as he realized, 'My "mortal sense"... It has weakened far more than I thought.'
In his previous life, Ferdinand had known his limits — both of body and of mind.
Perhaps that was why he sought out other, stranger paths: abilities that seemed illogical, even absurd, yet which he honed with desperate resolve in the hope of gaining the slightest foothold against the nightmares that hounded mankind.
Mortal Sense was one such art. It was a brutal, dynamic discipline that honed pattern recognition to a razor's edge, allowing practitioners to rapidly notice, connect, and thread subtle environmental and causal cues into a tapestry of near-certainty.
It was no true omniscience — only the nearest a human could reach by wrestling order out of chaos, distinguishing paranoia from pattern, clarity from noise; a power not bestowed by birthright, but earned through sheer, unrelenting effort.
Few could endure the years of constant vigilance and the painstaking training required — it demanded a desperation bordering on obsession.
To pursue it, one had to forego the desire to win or prove oneself; success was measured only in clarity, insight, and survival.
"Be a good child."
It wasn't the first time Kurian had heard those words — no, it was the first time in 'this' life, but not the first across all his lives.
Ironically, it had been his mother in his previous life who spoke them, just before selling him off to the military as a child recruit.
And now, once again, the same phrase surfaced: "Be a good child."
It carried the tone of an order, but for Kurian it stirred more than obedience; it awakened a warning, a flicker of memory laced with unease: "Leniency will cost more than what you can cough."
Some might dismiss this as paranoia. Perhaps it was. Yet Kurian knew better — this unease was proof of something else: his Mortal Sense was crippled.
In his past life, he had never mistaken those subtle cues for paranoia. They had been his compass, his silent shield, allowing him to avert disaster without ever knowing its shape.
That was the essence of Mortal Sense: a silent compass that works on the principle that Manifestation carries no sound, yet it always follows a process.
'No… for my age, my Mortal Sense is unusually strong,' Kurian immediately deduced, aware that such an ability was rarely this developed in a child of his years, impossible even.
'Perhaps I can even train it to an even higher level in this life, if everything goes well.' A small curl touched his lips at the thought.
He shifted his head slightly, trying to peer in the direction where his mother's footsteps had vanished, and drew a quiet conclusion: 'My new mother doesn't seem to pose a threat.'
Though his body was of a toddler and his old abilities crippled, Kurian reached a concrete realization — his mother was not the danger.
Then a thought struck him: 'Perhaps it is the place itself.'
A second realization followed: 'This place is dangerous to me, at least in my mothers' views.'
Squirming carefully, Kurian moved with deliberate control, wary not to let the ropes creak or draw notice. At last, he loosened the binding around one hand — just enough to regain a measure of mobility.
Though not fully freed, it was sufficient to peel away the cloth that veiled his eyes and muffled his ears.
As his ear canals cleared, a faint creaking and rattling drifted from above. Only then did he realize that he was in a basement.
'Is it night?' Kurian wondered, struck by the heavy absence of sound and presence alike. He held still, waiting as his eyes strained against the pitch of the room.
Gradually, shapes emerged from the gloom—the faint outlines of scattered objects breaking through the black.
With slow, deliberate effort, he worked at the knots binding his legs until they slackened just enough for him to take short, shuffling steps.
He made his way toward the ladder cautiously, testing his weight on the old wooden panel as he climbed upward, until a thin trickle of light seeped through the cracks above.
Coming to a halt just beneath the ceiling, Kurian finally understood the source of the faint creaking and rattling.
A slow, heavy rhythm pressed down from the floor above—a wet, straining cadence broken by short, ragged gasps. It was the sound of effort, of a body being consumed. Then came the voices.
A man's tone, low and satisfied, cut cruelly against the other sound: her voice.
It was no longer the soft, trembling breath that had once spoken his name. Now it rose as a raw, tearing moan, climbing higher until it fractured into a muffled, desperate cry.
"The night is still young," the man drawled, his casual dominance more terrifying than any shout.
Kurian heard his mother's strangled whisper — a broken fragment closer to "Stop..." than a true word — swallowed immediately by the man's next breath of satisfaction.
Forcing himself to ignore the beastly rhythm, Kurian shifted carefully until a narrow crack in the floorboards aligned with his eye.
Through the sliver, he caught the blur of movement above, the cruel intent in a looming shadow. Then came her face—the "Goddess" he had admired was gone.
Her features had collapsed into a strained mask of sharp lines and sweat, lips drawn back from her teeth in a silent snarl of endurance. She looked not like a mother, but like a prisoner of war, bound not by rope but by power.
Kurian's gaze slid away from the horrific tableau to the dusty window of the main room. Beyond it, houses stood tightly packed. Through a neighbor's half-drawn curtain he glimpsed faint lamplight, a radio playing softly next door.
The raw sounds of suffering must have reached them. Yet outside, life went on, uninterrupted.
'I see what's happening here.' Kurian released a heavy sigh and turned his gaze aside, unwilling to witness more of the vile scene.
Instead, he fixed his eyes on the blank darkness and listened—listened to his mother's struggle and the man's arrogant words—as he worked to piece together the truth of this place.
Continuing his vile act, the man rambled on about making big profits from weapons and gaining the trust of some researcher in a secret business.
He spat out filth, boasting that the woman beneath him should feel grateful—after all, she had been born with a beautiful face.
While muttering, he rifled through the contraceptives he'd brought, clicking his tongue in annoyance before tossing aside a bag that jingled faintly.
Heading for the door, he sneered, "It's a shame you're an infertile bitch. Otherwise, the nobles would have paid a hefty price for those fine genes." His voice dripped with venomous contempt as he slammed the door shut behind him.
Once he was gone, Kurian's mother pulled herself upright, whispering curses under her breath in a voice so small it betrayed her fear of provoking him further.
"Beast… monster…" she hissed, loathing dripping between ragged breaths.
As she threw her quiet, venomous tantrum, Kurian pieced the situation together.
First, this place was a lawless zone, where strength alone dictated authority. Second, his mother had been trying to shield him from that man's attention — but why?
If they lived here, she had to understand how things worked. That could only mean one of two things: either he was not a planned child at all… or he was.
If he wasn't, then his existence was a liability. But if he was planned, it was worse — because then there was only one reason for his conception: to gain favor from his father.
If his father was someone with power, it would make sense why his mother had conceived him. And yet, judging by her actions, Kurian sensed a different truth — that she had realized bearing him would not improve her circumstances at all.
Perhaps, fearing he might instead be sold off, she had chosen instead to act on instinct — her motherly instinct — and protect him.
Standing and facing the ceiling once again, Kurian waited for his mother to open the hatch. After a few tense moments, she lifted it, only to let out a small gasp of surprise.
"K-Kurian?" she whispered, her eyes trembling as they darted nervously around the room. Her expression twisted into something like the grimace one makes with indigestion — flustered, uneasy, and wholly unprepared for what she saw.
"Mom," Kurian called gently as the woman hesitated, trembling slightly.
"Y-Yes?" she replied, her voice shaky.
"Are you okay?" Kurian asked, concern threading his tone. The woman paused, unsure what to say or do. Tears welled in her eyes, yet she forced a trembling smile.
"I'm okay, sweetie," she whispered.
Without another word, Kurian stepped forward and hugged her. She felt the warmth of his embrace around her waist.
Neither spoke — there were no thoughts, only the simple, raw connection of the hug. Slowly, she returned it, gritting her teeth, uncertain but willing.
As Kurian felt her embrace, the truth settled in: "So, I am indeed a political bargaining chip."
To be continued...
***
A/N: Whew! I'm finally back from my work outside the city and am returning to writing!
I'll be aiming for daily chapters. To quickly cover Kurian's development from childhood to his late twenties before the main story, we will have a total of 15-chapter prologue.
A quick note on the pace: These 15 chapters will be extremely fast-paced to cover nearly three decades of growth and preparation.
I understand this style may not suit everyone, but please bear with me! Since these chapters are so compact, be ready for some information dumps as I try to efficiently include all the necessary background, training, and setting details.